Book Preview-Confessions of a Pastor September 8, 2006
“In acts of mutual confession we release power that heals … humanity is no longer denied, but transformed. The followers of Jesus Christ are given the authority to receive the confession of sin and to forgive it in His name.’’–Richard Foster, The Celebration of Discipline
“Confess your sins one to another and pray for one another, that you may be healed.”-James 5:16
The concept of confession of sin to one another in most Protestant circles is meet with, at the very least, indifference. At its worst, it is met with outright rejection. “That sounds Catholic to me,” they may argue. “I don’t need to confess my sins to anyone but God.”
The need of an outlet for confession is the motivation behind mysecret.tv, recently featured in the New York Times:
The LifeChurch founder, the Rev. Craig Groeschel, said that after 16 years in the ministry he knew that the smiles and eager handshakes that greeted him each week often masked a lot of pain. But the accounts of anguish and guilt that have poured into mysecret.tv have stunned him, Mr. Groeschel said, and affirmed his belief in the need for confession. (read the article)
Pastor Groeschel has written a book of his own confessions appropriately titled Confessions of A Pastor: Adventures in Dropping the Pose and Getting Real With God. Described as “the dark side of a pastor’s life,” Groeschel states bluntly “I have to work hard to stay sexually pure, I hate prayer meetings, sometimes I doubt God , and I can’t stand a lot of Christians…”
Unlike the users of mysecret.tv, Groeschel writes without the protection of anonymity–a bold and refreshing move considering how we tend to forget that pastors are real men who share the same struggles, face the same temptations and have the same dark secrets that we all have.